“I thought our guys responded really well from a very quick turnaround from a tough loss against Kansas. We didn’t get back here until five in the morning on Wednesday with that late game. I was concerned and Mike [Jarvis] always does a great job with his team. And they’re big, they’re a big team. I thought our guys responded very well. I thought we worked really hard, shared the ball, Rodney [Hood] really asserted himself early. Andre [Dawkins] keeps having better practices and is further away from an injury that knocked him back a little bit. It was a back injury. He’s good now. He was sharp tonight and really had a good night. I thought Quinn [Cook] pressured the ball well, which we didn’t do against Kansas. We didn’t really dictate anything, especially in the second half against Kansas. So overall, a very good performance and now the NIT. Win a couple games in order to go to New York.”

On the improvement of the defense:

“Defense did well. [Pablo] Bertone had 15 points in the first half. Rasheed [Sulaimon]’s under the weather – I don’t know if you can even see, he’s really clogged up. I guess a lot of people are getting it right now with the change in temperature. But I thought at the start of the second half, his defense on Bertone set the pace for our defense. And Amile [Jefferson] did a good job. But Bertone only had two in the second half. Rasheed wasn’t even looking offense. He was just playing defense and we need that. Not that we want him to always look defense, but we wanted him to be a stopper in the second half and he was.”

“It doesn’t surprise me about our fans. And by the way, the crowd was great again. These two games that we’ve played at home have been terrific, the crowds. It’s really good. Andre’s been a national champion here. He’s been away for a year and people respect the fact that … most of us have problems. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t have a problem at some time in their life. I thought he’s done a great job in dealing with his situation and then staying at Duke, which is what he wanted to do, and being a good teammate and tonight being a major contributor. I would hope he does that every game. He’s capable of doing it in a game.”

On Dawkins’ boost off the bench:

“It’s big. There’s no question about it. He got those two quick three’s. And say you’re in a game and you’re up by five. And boom, he hits one and you get a steal and he hits one again, the team looks up there and it’s double digits. That type of thing. He’s a good weapon to have.”

On what he talked about with Hood in terms of assertiveness:

“He should look for his own shot – we put him in positions where he might get a read. It’s not like calling a play, but we call them actions. And during an action, a read occurs – an open low post and you’re on the wing. Well you need to drive that all the time because there’s no help. That type of thing. And against Kansas, those reads were there and he wasn’t taking advantage of them. What you do is you show him tape and you say, ‘Do you see it?’ ‘I see it.’ I said, ‘Did you see it in the game?’ He said, ‘I wasn’t looking for it.’ I said, ‘Well if you don’t look to read, you’re not going to be as good a player.’ And that’s part of he didn’t play for a year. Our team is young together. Obviously Jabari [Parker]’s a really good player but he’s just played his third college game. Everyone says he’s really good and he is, but he’s not who he’s going to be. This is not like having Ryan [Kelly] and Mason [Plumlee] and Seth [Curry] where they already knew who they were. And so there’s a lot of growing that needs to take place. Rodney did some of that tonight. He’s very, very good. And you can almost see Jabari wanting to do that. I thought Jabari wasn’t looking for his stuff early – he wanted Rodney to get off. And he did. I’d like both of them to get off, and Andre and Rasheed. It makes coaching a lot easier.”

On limiting turnovers:

“Knock on wood, we’ve been fairly good with our assists and turnovers. The differential has been positive. Actually in the three games, the total, we’re way ahead of our opponents. The thing that our opponents are way ahead of us in, although not as much tonight, is rebounding. We’re getting outrebounded by 10 in the first two games and tonight we outrebounded them but we gave up 16 offensive boards. And a lot of them were in the second half. The thing I tried to do today was to sub guys in from our bench during really quality time, just to give them a chance to be with key players in key situations. In doing that, I can even work with the rhythm of your key players by doing that. But overall I thought we benefitted from doing that. We have to keep looking at that. You can’t get that in practice. You’ve got to try to do that in a game.”

“I was just being aggressive. When you put in a lot of extra work, you get more confident. My shot felt really good and then as you make shots, guys start to get a little closer to you so it opens up lanes to drive. It’s something I’ve got to work on and keep getting better.”

“I had a lot of confidence coming in. I think the main thing with me is just being disciplined and doing the things I need to do every time when I shoot. That’s what I’ve been working on over the past week or so, getting a lot of extra work in. As long as I do the right things when I shoot it and stay disciplined, I think I have a pretty good chance of the ball going in.”

On hearing the “Dre all day” chant from the Cameron Crazies:

“It’s nice. I’ve been missing that for a year.”

On whether he experienced any frustration early in the season in trying to work back into the flow of things:

“Obviously I want to play, but I wasn’t frustrated and I had a positive outlook on it. I just had to get better. With a team this deep, it’s very easy to slip and the difference between playing minutes and not playing minutes is very small on this team. It’s just a matter of getting in the gym and getting better and then showing in practice that you deserve to be on the court.”

“We’re very deep and we’ve got multiple guys who have started at one time and are capable of starting. We all expect that from Dre. It’s not anything he hasn’t done before – it’s just the first time since he’s been back that he’s done it. I’m going to be on him every single day because it makes my and Jabari (Parker)’s jobs so much easier to spread the floor like that.”

When asked what the points of emphasis were after the Kansas loss:

“First of all, [the emphasis was on] me attacking on the offensive end and being a leader out there. I was quiet in the Kansas game. Defensively, [our focus was on] playing more together. I think we hugged our men that game rather than helping each other out and shrinking the floor. And I think we did a great job of that [tonight], and we actually pressured the ball tonight. That’s a big thing that we have to do, especially when we start playing bigger teams – we have to pressure the ball.”

“I just want to be as aggressive as possible. I tried to be aggressive last game [versus Kansas]. I was going to the hole, but I was going to finish rather than getting fouled. Today I was trying to get to the line, and I was really comfortable at the line. I actually hit my free throws today, except one and Coach [Jon] Scheyer reminded me of that. I just tried to be aggressive, and my teammates fed of it.”

“We fed off his energy this time. Rodney just led us – that’s our captain and we feed off positive energy when he’s aggressive.”

“We were really happy that Dre came up big. It shows that it’s not only the starters or the immediate people that come off the bench. We have other weapons that can contribute to us too.”

On his defensive improvement tonight versus the Kansas game:

“I think I did better. I was a little bit more active, but there’s always room for improvement. Defense takes effort. It doesn’t really take a lot of skill necessarily. It’s more of you putting in your own time and energy.”

“I’m having fun. I love these guys. They’re my brothers. They’re my family because I don’t get to see my immediate family, so everywhere I go they make me feel comfortable and make me feel like I’m welcome. Just playing with them, I know that there’s no selfishness so it’s always fun just going out to war with them.”

Florida Atlantic Head Coach Mike Jarvis

Opening Statement:

“First of all I just want to say I scheduled this game. Now some people would say that you have to be out of your mind. But I really believe that if I am going to do the best I can by my kids I want them to see the best. I want them to see probably the best facility, best college atmosphere there is in the United States of America, which is here in Cameron. To play one of the obviously all-time great teams, obviously with the winningest coach, period, and to really see how good the players are at this level so that my players know how much better and how much more work it is going to take for them to just get better. Also to make them understand that they better get a degree so they can get a good job because not too many guys at our level are going to play at the level that a lot of these guys are going to play at. And a game like this, if you come in and you compete, we didn’t play great but we competed, I think you can get a lot out of it. I’ve brought much better teams in here and have gotten beat by just as many points, as have most teams and very few people come in here and win, period. I can say very happily that I am the last one outside of the ACC that has sat right here as the victorious coach. I don’t know if it will take another 13 years for somebody else to beat Duke here but who knows. Maybe someday …it might happen. It’s always great to see Coach who is a good friend of mine and to see him at what he does best.”

On his relationship with Coach K:

“We go back before that. Coach and Mickie befriended my wife and I. I think probably because of my wife, they loved my wife, they sort of tolerated me and we became friends on Nike trips. My respect for Mike has always been incredibly high. I remember when I was at Boston University just starting out coaching, we played against Duke in the Dean Dome. I had a pretty good, tough team from BU and that was the first time I coached against Mike. Between that and the Nike trips and then Mike came on, in fact I passed the gavel on to Mike as the president to president in the National Association of Basketball coaches and that’s where I really got to know just how great an ambassador of the game Mike Krzyzewski is. Just the things that he has done with USA Basketball he has also done in the ACC. Mike and I would always kid each other…the brothers from different mothers. We would go to represent the NABC in a lot of different leagues fighting against the NCAA for the rights of the student athletes. Our friendship became a lot more because of our professional relationship but he is a good friend. I’m attending his daughter’s wedding and inviting him to our daughter’s. It’s great to have a friend like Mike. Last thing I want to say is I remember coming here once when things weren’t going quite as well at St. John’s and one of my players’ girlfriends got people to start chanting Fire Jarvis and of course the Duke fans picked up on it and I’ll never forget. One day we were getting beat pretty good by Duke and the fans started in chanting thinking it was going to be cute and Mike got right up and shut them up in about two seconds. I’ll never forget that. He’s really a special guy, as you know.”

On effectiveness of two big guys as hole in Duke defense:

“Possibly but they have so many weapons that they can overcome that. If a team is put in after player half way with them to the perimeter that no doubt teams are going to try to beat them inside. No doubt about it. But their players are so good all the way around that they are probably going to find a way to deal with that aspect. I’m sure Mike is not crazy about their rebounding the ball defensively. We are normally not a good rebounding team offensively but we got a lot of rebounds tonight so I know that is something they are going to be working on. But it also is confidence. We will tell the kids, ‘Hey we just go sixteen offensive rebounds against Duke’ and maybe our kids will think that is something we build on.”